The U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II

Africa 

to the Alps

The Army Air Forces 

in the Mediterranean Theater

Edward T. Russell and Robert M. Johnson

A I R F O R C E H I S TO RY A N D M U S E U M S P RO G R A M

1999
Africa to the Alps

The Army Air Forces in the Mediterranean Theater

By the time the United States declared war on Germany and Italy on

December 11, 1941, most of Europe had fallen under the domination

of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany’s Third Reich. In the west, only

Great Britain, her armies expelled from the European continent, remained defiant; in the east, Hitler faced an implacable foe—the Soviet Union.While the Soviets tried to stave off a relentless German attack that had reached Moscow, Britain and her Commonwealth allies

fought a series of crucial battles with Axis forces in North Africa.

Initially, America’s entry into the war changed nothing. The United States continued to supply the Allies with the tools of war, as it

had since the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. U.S.

military forces, however, had to be expanded, trained, equipped, and

deployed, all of which would take time.

With the United States in the war, the Allies faced the question of

where American forces could best be used. President Franklin D.

Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston S. Churchill had already agreed that defeating first Germany and then Japan would be

their policy, but that decision raised further questions.

Roosevelt wanted U.S. troops in combat against German troops as

soon as possible. Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader, demanded a second

front in northern Europe to relieve pressure on his armed forces.

Churchill, fearing German power in France, hoped for a strike at the

Mediterranean periphery of Hitler’s conquests—what he called the

“soft underbelly” of Europe.

Churchill proposed an invasion of northwest Africa for late 1942

and Roosevelt agreed. As a result, American forces were soon on

their way across the Atlantic, beginning a Mediterranean journey that

would involve them in nearly three long years of combat.

Africa to the Alps describes the participation of the Army Air

Forces in the war in the Mediterranean theater of operations, as it developed a practical air-ground doctrine, established an effective interdiction strategy, and gained valuable experience in airborne operations and close air support of ground troops. 
America Comes to the Desert

As U.S. and British leaders gathered in Washington after Pearl Harbor

for their first wartime conference (Arcadia), British land, sea, and air

forces were fighting against Axis forces in a desperate struggle for control

of the Mediterranean. The Allies considered this area crucial to their interests because it affected supply lines to the Soviet Union, aircraft ferrying

routes to India and China, and oil fields in Iran and Iraq. The prospect of

triumphant German and Japanese armies joining forces in India remained

a recurrent Allied nightmare.

An operation by the British Eighth Army in late 1941 that featured

bold thrusts by armored spearheads drove the Germans and their Italian

allies westward from the border of Egypt. But Gen. Erwin Rommel and

his Afrika Korps soon resumed the offensive. What began as a limited

German thrust in January 1942 against El Agheila, Libya, grew by May

into a major attack. Bolstered by increased supplies, the Afrika Korps battled through British defensive positions at Gazala and captured Tobruk on

June 21. Retreating across the western desert to hastily prepared defenses

at El Alamein, sixty miles west of Alexandria, the British averted complete disaster only by determined rearguard fighting and domination of

the skies.

As the Germans opened their May assault, Sir Charles Portal, chief of

air staff for Britain, met in London with Gen. Henry H. Arnold, head of

the Army Air Forces (AAF), to determine how to bring U.S. bombers and

fighters to the Middle East. In fact, the first U.S. heavy bombers had already arrived. During a stopover along the African leg of a newly established ferrying route to India, twenty-three B–24s commanded by Col.

Harry Halverson diverted from their Asian journey and proceeded to

Egypt. There they prepared for a strike against Ploesti, a Romanian petroleum complex vital to the German war machine. Over the next three

years, that target became legendary to the thousands of airmen who flew

against it. On the evening of June 11, 1942, thirteen of Halverson’s small

force of B–24s took off from a Royal Air Force (RAF) airfield near the

Suez Canal, arriving the next morning over the target where they bombed

the refineries as planned. The raid marked the first AAF combat mission

over Europe. From this modest start, the American presence in the

Mediterranean theater grew into an overwhelming force.

Halverson’s B–24s stayed and supported the U.S. Eighth Army in the

desert war against Rommel. For the next several weeks, they joined the

RAF in targeting German supplies, attacking convoys at sea, and repeatedly striking the harbors at Benghazi and Tobruk. In Cairo, meanwhile,

the structure of the AAF in the Middle East took shape. On June 28, the

U.S. Army Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF) activated under the command of Maj. Gen. Lewis Brereton. With nine B–17s from the Tenth Air

Force in India, he was a recent arrival. The Halverson and Brereton heavy

1
bombers were the only U.S. combat aircraft in the Middle East until P–40

fighters and B–25 medium bombers arrived in August.

The USAMEAF joined the RAF, Middle East, commanded by Air

Chief Marshal Sir Arthur W. Tedder, and the Western Desert Air Force, led

by Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, in forming the Allied air

power opposing Rommel. The Americans soon became familiar with

British air tactics and doctrine. They observed Tedder’s and Coningham’s

fight within the British military to divorce air power from the control of

ground commanders and they participated in the effective application of

air power to the battlefield.

By the end of August, as new aircraft arrived, the Americans increased

their tempo of operations, flying almost daily missions against enemy shipping at sea and in the ports of Benghazi and Tobruk. In September, U.S.

P–40s and B–25s, flying with existing RAF units, joined the heavies in

blunting a major Axis attack on Alam Halfa at the southern end of the

British line. The next test for U.S. airmen came in October at El Alamein.

El Alamein

At 9:40 p.m. on October 23, 1942, Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery, the

British Eighth Army’s new commander, began the second battle of

Alamein with a four-hour artillery barrage. Although the battle consisted

primarily of tank and artillery duels, Allied air power also contributed. 

2

The Concordia Vega Oil Refinery at Ploesti, Romania, was part of the area’s

petroleum-producing complex that was crucial to the German war effort.

Allied bombers attacked the region repeatedly from 1942 to 1945, destroying

(1) distillation plants, (2) boiler houses, and (3) cracking plants. The blasted

oil storage tanks in the foreground left the Germans with no place to store

whatever petroleum they were able to refine in the damaged operation.

PHOTO # 1
Allied fighters and medium bombers slashed at frontline gun emplacements, tank groups, and infantry positions, and blasted overextended German supply lines. The U.S. 57th Fighter Group roared overhead, scoring

twenty-nine aerial victories, and B–25s succeeded in breaking up two enemy counterattacks. By November 4, their victory was complete and Allied

forces, including the U.S. Ninth Air Force, began pursuing the Afrika

Korps across the Libyan desert and into eastern Tunisia, where Rommel

linked up with existing German forces. Until late 1943, the Ninth Air

Force supported the British advance, flew interdiction missions against

German supply lines and reinforcements, bombed Ploesti, and joined the

Tunisia-based Twelfth Air Force in attacks against a widening arc of targets northward into Sicily and Italy.

North Africa

In the predawn hours of November 8, 1942, the Americans and the

British, commanded by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, began their first

combined World War II invasion, code-named Operation Torch. Three Allied task forces launched assaults against Vichy French positions across

northwestern Africa. 

Casablanca

The western task force, led by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton and composed of Americans, landed near Casablanca. Meeting stiff resistance,

Patton’s forces failed initially to capture the crucial airfield at Port

Lyautey. But when that objective finally fell

on November 10, P–40 aircraft from XII Air

Support Command catapulted off the deck of

the carrier USS Chenango and rushed to Port

Lyautey. When they discovered a heavily

damaged main runway that precluded air operations, some airmen got into the fight as

assault infantry and others ran convoys of

gasoline.

Oran

Hundreds of miles to the east, Maj. Gen.

Lloyd Fredendall’s U.S.-dominated center

task force approached Oran. Their daring objectives were to capture the port quickly,

move inland rapidly, and relieve paratroopers

flown in to take vital airfields at La Senia and

Tafaraoui.

3

Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall

PHOTO # 2
The night before the invasion, the 60th Troop Carrier Group’s C–47s

loaded with the 503d Parachute Infantry Regiment took off from St. Eval

and Predannack in southwestern England, bound for Africa over 1,000

miles away. Trouble lay ahead. Bad weather and equipment problems

broke up the formation and forced many aircraft to fly through the Spanish darkness alone. Next morning the C–47s were scattered from Gibraltar to Oran, with three aircraft interned in Spanish Morocco. In a remarkable feat of flying skill, most pilots put their paratroopers within a few

miles of Tafaraoui, but U.S. units advancing from the beachhead took the

objective before the airborne troops arrived.

On the afternoon of November 8, Twelfth Air Force commander Brig.

Gen. James H. Doolittle ordered his 31st Fighter Group’s Spitfires into Tafaraoui, where within a few hours they went into action against La Senia.

The following day, the last French aircraft roared away from La Senia airfield, leaving behind only a few defenders. Shortly thereafter, the Tafaraoui

Spitfires teamed with armored units to force the French to surrender.

Doolittle’s airmen also rendered important support during the fight for

Oran. Early on November 9, the Spitfires spotted a large column of the

French Foreign Legion moving up from Sidi-bel-Abbès and turned it back

with a devastating attack. The next day, French forces in Oran surrendered.

Algiers

The Eastern Task Force, comprising

largely British troops and commanded by an

American, Maj. Gen. Charles Ryder, captured

Algiers and its airfield, Maison Blanche, on

November 8. With all three Allied task forces

now safely ashore, the initial phase of Operation Torch was over. Ahead lay Tunisia and the

prize of the campaign—Tunis.

Tunisia

In mid-November 1942, as Montgomery

pursued Rommel westward across the Libyan

desert, Eisenhower learned of a German aircraft buildup in Tunisia and Sicily. The reports flooded in: Stuka dive-bombers seen at

El Aouina, Tunisia; fighters spotted by aerial reconnaissance at other

Tunisian airfields; and German transports seen at Trapani in Sicily. Eisenhower now realized that he faced a fight, not a race, for Tunisia.

Eisenhower quickly ordered the airborne capture of two forward airfields to extend air support for British and U.S. ground units moving eastward into Tunisia. On November 12, British parachutists carried by the

4

Maj. Gen. Charles Ryder

PHOTO # 3
AAF’s 64th Troop Carrier Group overran the

airfield at Bône, Algeria. Three days later, the

60th Troop Carrier Group dropped American

paratroops at Youks-les-Bains airfield near

the Tunisian border. By the end of November,

Allied forces under the command of Lt. Gen.

Kenneth Anderson, a Briton, reached Tebourba, just sixteen miles west of Tunis.

Meanwhile, the enemy’s buildup in

Tunisia accelerated. Using airlift and sealift,

the Germans and Italians brought in tanks,

trucks, ammunition, and thousands of men.

On November 28, they struck Eisenhower’s

forces. Over the next five days, Axis troops,

tanks, and aircraft pounded the Allies and

drove them back almost twenty miles to the

west. 

***

Winter rains further complicated Eisenhower’s operations, quickly

turning his unpaved airfields into seas of mud that bogged down Allied

aircraft. The Germans, however, enjoyed modern airfields in Sicily, Sardinia, and Tunisia. They flew hundreds of bombers and their new fighter,

the fast, well-armed FW 190, from all-weather, paved runways. As the

winter weather worsened late in December, Eisenhower reluctantly went

5

Gen. Erwin Rommel

Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery

PHOTO # 5

PHOTO # 4
on the defensive, leaving Doolittle’s B–17s and P–38s to carry the fight to

Axis ports, shipping, and airfields.

The original plan for Operation Torch called for the assignment of an

overall air commander, but Eisenhower decided that unified air forces

were not usable. Thus, throughout November and December, American

and British airmen fought separate wars, mainly in support of their respective army ground corps. Because senior army officers insisted that

airmen be under their control to provide local protection and handle local

problems, air power was not used efficiently. Consequently, at the end of

1942, Eisenhower and his senior leaders decided to consolidate Allied air

resources into the Mediterranean Air Command, led by Air Chief Marshal

Tedder. This reorganization permitted Tedder to direct scarce resources

where they were most needed.

In the weeks ahead, two major tests awaited Eisenhower’s forces in

central Tunisia. The first occurred on January 30, 1943, when the Germans launched a strong offensive and drove the Allies back. For five days

they fought a mobile defensive battle, finally reaching stronger positions.

In mid-February, Field Marshal Rommel led a second powerful thrust,

ripping through the Kasserine Pass. There the Allies—particularly the

U.S. II Corps—suffered a stunning defeat. Several days later, Allied

forces counterattacked and pushed the Germans back, thus ending the last

serious Axis threat in Africa.

Meanwhile, at Allied Force Headquarters in Algiers, Eisenhower continued the reorganization of Allied air power and established the Northwest

6

Crews based in North Africa, like the airmen shown above, were briefed

before each mission.

PHOTO # 6
African Air Forces (NAAF) under the command of Lt. Gen. Carl A.

Spaatz. Under Tedder’s direction as the single theater air commander, the

NAAF, which comprised the U.S. Twelfth Air Force and Britain’s Western

Desert Air Force, offered unity of command within the theater and greater

flexibility in the use of air power. The shock of Rommel’s early success at

the Kasserine Pass and persistent squabbling over the control of close air

support forced Eisenhower to take more drastic action. Before the fighting

ended, he created a centralized Allied Air Support Command under Air

Vice Marshal Coningham. The aggressive New Zealander transformed tactical aviation in Tunisia. He immediately implemented his philosophy first

to destroy the German Luftwaffe, then isolate the battlefield—a system

7

As these two photos show, damage to German military equipment was heavy

in Porto Farma, Tunisia, between Bizerte and Tunis.

PHOTO # 8

PHOTO # 7
combat-proven by the British Eighth Army in

its victory at El Alamein—and drive across

the Libyan desert.

In March 1943, improving weather,

more aircraft, and new airfields led to increased Allied air activity, diminishing complaints from the ground commanders and

posing deadly challenges to the Luftwaffe.

Alerted by Ultra, the famous Allied codebreaking effort, on April 18, scores of P–40s

and Spitfires ambushed a formation of over

one hundred German transports and their

fighter escort off the Tunisian coast. The

Americans struck swiftly. In what became

known as the “Palm Sunday Massacre,” they

shot down nearly half of the enemy formation in a matter of minutes. This success

against the Axis air transport system, combined with accelerated attacks over the next

few weeks, forced the Germans to abandon daylight supply missions.

Meanwhile, Allied ground units in the west joined with Montgomery’s forces from the east, and closed on Axis troops falling back on

Bizerte and Tunis. Heavy fighting continued through April, but by early

May surviving enemy forces had either surrendered or escaped to Sicily.

Birth of a Doctrine

The centralization of tactical air power in Tunisia under a single air

commander was a seminal point in the development of modern air power

doctrine. U.S. airmen, long frustrated by an air-ground doctrine that

placed air power under the control of ground commanders, eagerly embraced the concepts implemented so successfully by Coningham. In

praise of unified air power, Montgomery commented that

Nothing could be more fatal to successful results than to dissipate the air

resources into small packets placed under the command of army formation

commanders, with each packet working on its own plan.

Influenced by favorable reports from U.S. commanders in Africa, Gen.

George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff, supported efforts by his top airman, General Arnold, to push a new American air doctrine. Published in

Field Manual 100-20 in July 1943, the new doctrine clearly stated that U.S.

air and ground forces were equal and it elevated air superiority as the first

requirement of the land battle. The manual, widely viewed as an AAF declaration of independence, gave air commanders broad flexibility in evolving

8

Air Vice Marshal 

Arthur Coningham

PHOTO # 9
air support systems throughout the remainder of the war. Ensuing campaigns in Sicily and Italy further refined the doctrine’s application.

Sicily

Before the fight for North Africa ended, Roosevelt, Churchill, and

their top military advisors met at Casablanca in January 1943 to examine

the worldwide course of the war and decide on future strategy. In the

Mediterranean theater, they called for the conquest of Sicily (Operation

Husky) following a North African victory. The Allies recognized the island

of Sicily, located just south of the Italian mainland, as a logical step on the

road to Rome.

Lying between Tunisia and Sicily, Pantelleria and Lampedusa posed a

threat to the invading forces. With their radio direction finder stations,

troops on both islands could interfere with ship movements in the Sicilian

straits, and a modern airfield on Pantelleria gave the enemy an interdiction capability. Capturing the bases would protect the invasion forces and

allow the Allies to deploy fighters to protect ships and men during the

first stage of Operation Husky. Reluctant to invade, Eisenhower decided

to bomb the defenders into surrender.

In late May, NAAF and Allied naval forces began pounding Pantelleria. The airmen unleashed a torrent of bombs using an array of aircraft,

including B–17s, B–25s, B–26s, P–38s, P–40s, A–36s, A–20s, and RAF

Wellingtons. On June 11, a battered Italian garrison eagerly surrendered.

Enemy forces on Lampedusa capitulated soon thereafter.

Allied airmen then turned their full attention on Sicily. During the latter part of May, they bombed Sicilian and Sardinian airfields often and

hard, and when Axis bombers pulled out for southern Italy, Allied airmen

followed. In the last week of May, they struck heavy blows against Axis

airfield complexes at Naples and Foggia.

In an effort to block enemy reinforcement of Sicily, NAAF flew hundreds of medium- and heavy-bomber sorties during the latter half of June

9

RAF VickersWellington

PHOTO # 10
against depots, ports, and marshaling yards along Italy’s western coast. As

part of this effort, Messina, located on Sicily’s northeast tip, was struck

especially hard.

The Allied air forces also repeatedly hit airfields and landing grounds

on Sicily, putting many of them out of service before the invasion. The

Luftwaffe, however, still posed a threat. As Allied convoys approached

Sicily on the night of July 9/10, enemy aircraft spread among bases in

Sicily, Sardinia, Italy, and southern France still numbered in the hundreds.

Although Allied air forces had nearly five thousand operational aircraft,

they remained alert to possible attack. 

The invasion plan called first for British and U.S. airborne assaults,

the former by glider and the latter by parachute. The British began their

operation on the evening of July 9 when 147 tow planes, each pulling a

loaded glider, took off from Tunisia. The aircraft, nearly all C–47s from

the AAF’s Troop Carrier Command, carried the British I Airborne Division. Their mission focused on seizing a canal bridge south of the city of

Syracuse on Sicily’s east coast. Regrettably, strong winds, flak, and poor

visibility caused most tow pilots to release their gliders in the wrong

areas. Only twelve came down in the landing zone; at least forty-seven

gliders crashed into the sea, drowning many of the troops aboard. But the

10

Beginning in late May 1943, NAAF and Allied forces

pounded the island of Pantelleria and reduced its streets to

rubble. Enemy radar installations there posed a threat to

Allied ship movements.

PHOTO # 11
British managed to engage the enemy at the canal bridge and captured it

the next day.

The U.S. phase of the operation paralleled that of the British. More than

two hundred C–47s carrying almost three thousand paratroopers of the 82d

Airborne Division left Tunisia on the evening of July 9. Delayed because of

high winds and a missed checkpoint over Malta, they approached Sicily in

almost complete darkness to discover that fire and smoke from earlier Allied bombing further obscured their drop zones. As a result, the paratroopers came down over a wide area. They carried out their mission, however,

seizing and holding a strategic road junction east of Gela.

The Allies had decided to invade Sicily at its southeastern corner,

with the U.S. Seventh Army under Lt. Gen. George Patton on the left and

the British Eighth Army under Montgomery on the right. As dawn, July

10, approached, the amphibious phase of the operation began. At daylight,

Allied airmen, including the recently arrived African-American troops of

the 99th Fighter Squadron—popularly known as the “Tuskegee Airmen”

—established defensive air patrols over the beaches and shipping. Nightfall found Licata, Syracuse, and the airfield at Pachino in Allied hands.

The next day, the U.S. Seventh Army held the beachhead against assaults

by the German Hermann Goering and Italian Livorno Divisions, sustaining more than two thousand casualties in the effort.

Patton decided to reinforce the beachhead with paratroopers from his

North African reserves and he ordered a mission for the night of July 11.

Not everyone got the word, however. Nervous antiaircraft gunners in the

Allied fleet and on shore mistook the arriving Allied transports for the enemy and opened fire with devastating effect. The gunners shot down

twenty-three out of 144 aircraft, damaged thirty-seven more, and inflicted

10 percent casualties on the paratroop force. The surviving troopers

joined the Seventh Army’s fight to take the coastal plain and move into the

hills beyond. 

On July 13, the American and British armies linked up and the critical

assault phase was over. With the landings now secure, NAAF struck targets farther afield. Medium and heavy bombers attacked Messina on July

14, and B–17s and Wellingtons bombed Naples on July 14–15, damaging

marshaling yards, rolling stock, and railroad tracks in both cities.

A week after the invasion, the U.S. Seventh Army raced north and

west toward Palermo and the British Eighth Army moved against Catania.

During these drives, AAF’s XII Air Support Command helped the Americans, the RAF’s Desert Air Force aided the British, and the Allied Tactical

Bomber Force supported both armies.

On July 22, the Americans liberated Palermo, a swift action that required little air support. But across the island, air power played a major

role in fighting for Catania. Airmen flew hundreds of missions in the last

ten days of July, bombing enemy communications centers, troop and gun

concentrations, ammunition dumps, roads, and bridges.

11
On August 1, as the Sicilian campaign drew to a close, Libya-based

B–24 Liberators of the Ninth Air Force struck Ploesti in the AAF’s final

heavy-bomber, low-level attack of the European war. A navigation error destroyed the daring plan’s split-second timing, alerted Axis air defenses, and

created confusion over the target; but despite very heavy losses, the crews

grimly pressed home their attacks from altitudes as low as one hundred feet.

Bravery and heroism in the attack on Ploesti resulted in five awards of the

Medal of Honor. The Germans, however, swiftly repaired the damage.

As Allied troops approached Messina from the south and west in early

August, enemy forces fled across the narrow straits to the Italian mainland. To slow their withdrawal, Allied aircraft targeted every means of escape. A–36 dive-bombers struck merchant vessels, barges, freighters, and

other small craft; medium and heavy bombers pounded supply points,

marshaling yards, and beaches; and fighters attacked harbor shipping. In

spite of these efforts, the resourceful Germans saved thousands of men

and tons of equipment.

The campaign in Sicily successfully combined air, ground, and sea

power in one of the largest amphibious landings of World War II. Although a tough fight in torturous terrain followed, the eventual triumph

secured Allied lines of communication in the Mediterranean, forced the

Germans to transfer troops into southern France and the Balkans, and provided a springboard for the invasion of mainland Italy.

12

Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, commander of the U.S. Seventh Army, left, and Lt.

Col. Lyle B. Bernard, commanding officer of the 30th Infantry Regiment, 3d

Infantry Division, confer on the outskirts of Messina, Sicily.

PHOTO # 12
Italy

The air plan for the invasion of Italy called for bombing enemy airfields and communications lines, so from August 18 until September 2,

1943, Allied bombers attacked key cities, marshaling yards, harbors,

bridges, and airfields. Allied air leaders also realized that most enemy

supplies came down the narrow “boot” of Italy by rail, passing through

the choke points of Rome, Naples, and Foggia. Raids had already disrupted marshaling yards at Rome and Naples. On August 19, U.S. and British

heavy bombers struck Foggia. They cut lines to Naples, Manfredonia, and

Bari; hit yards, nearby factories, and rolling stock; and wrecked electric

substations. The airmen returned on August 25 to strafe and bomb the

Foggia airfield complex with more than two hundred P–38s and B–17s.

These attacks crippled enemy communications and proved invaluable to

the success of the invasion of Italy.

The British Eighth Army crossed the Strait of Messina on September

3 and landed on the “toe” of Italy. Opposition proved slight as the Germans began a slow withdrawal. Six days later, following the Allied announcement of Italy’s surrender, previously negotiated in secret, a British

division landed at Taranto on Italy’s “heel.” That same day, the U.S. Fifth

Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark, assaulted the beaches at

Salerno, less than fifty miles south of Naples on Italy’s western coast.

Amid a hail of German artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire that

extended from the beaches to the transports, U.S. troops went ashore and

pressed inland. Meanwhile, in response to the Italian surrender and determined to defend the peninsula, the Germans moved their forces south to

occupy their former Axis partner’s territory.

Using P–38s, A–36s, and Spitfires, the XII Air Support Command

provided continuous air cover over the invasion area. Behind the beaches,

airmen hoped to isolate the battlefield by cutting roads, rail lines, and

bridges, but enough German reinforcements got through to contain the

Salerno bridgehead. Elements of four Panzer divisions raced to the scene,

and, on September 12, they launched a heavy counterattack designed to

slice Clark’s army in half and push it into the sea. Within two days, the enemy drove a deep and dangerous wedge into the Allied front, at one point

coming within a thousand yards of the beach.

NAAF responded to the crisis by throwing its strength fully into the

fight. Heavy and medium bombers attacked roads and junctions to isolate

the battlefield; fighter-bombers flew hundreds of missions in direct support of the troops; and, finally, troop carriers brought in paratroopers who

conducted three drops between September 13 and 15. The bombing was a

spectacular success. Airmen obliterated roads, wiped out troop and motor

transport concentrations, and wrecked rail lines. Stunned by its heavy

losses, the enemy began pulling back on September 16. The U.S. Fifth

Army now prepared to go on the offensive.

13
While the Fifth and Eighth Armies readied for their move up the

peninsula, Allied airmen again struck Foggia, shattering the airfield complex and wrecking close to three hundred enemy aircraft. These losses,

combined with earlier maulings over Tunisia and Sicily, forced the 

14

Africa-based B–24s bombed Foggia, Italy, in August and September 1943.

They fought off FW 190s and reduced the airfields and railway marshaling

yards to rubble.

PHOTO # 14

Paratroopers of the 82d Airborne Division participated in the invasion of

Salerno, Italy, on September 13/14, 1943.

PHOTO # 13
Germans to surrender local air superiority as they withdrew bombers and

fighters either into central and northern Italy or back to Germany. For the

remainder of September, as the Allies edged toward Naples and Foggia,

their air forces mercilessly bombed and strafed the retreating Germans.

Again and again, NAAF airmen pressed home their attacks. They blocked

road junctions and other bottlenecks north and east of Naples; destroyed

bridges at Lagonegro, Avellino, and Capua; shot up troops and trucks

ahead of advancing Allied columns; and left railway spans impassable at

Formia and Pescara. Under this sustained pounding, German resistance

softened—a welcome outcome for the U.S. Army as it pushed slowly

northward across the mountains toward Naples.

After a tough fight, Clark’s Fifth Army poured onto the Naples plain

and liberated the city on October 1. Meanwhile, with negligible interference from the Luftwaffe, the British Eighth Army captured Foggia’s airfields and occupied the entire Gargano peninsula. With these victories,

the Allies now held Naples, Bari, and Taranto—three of Italy’s best ports

and two of its most important air centers.

As 1943 drew to a close, Allied leaders, including Roosevelt,

Churchill, and Chinese leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and their

top military advisors met at Cairo, Egypt, to plan future strategy. They created the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces (MAAF) to control all theater air

15

On Thanksgiving Day, 1943, the heads of the governments of China, the

United States, and Great Britain, and their military advisers met in Cairo,

Egypt, to plan future strategy. Pictured above,seated left to right, are

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime

Minister Winston Churchill, and Madam Chiang Kai-shek.

PHOTO # 15
units and approved a U.S.

proposal for an air force—the

Fifteenth Air Force, based in

the Mediterranean—to join

in the strategic bombing of

Germany. To coordinate activities of the veteran Eighth

Air Force, operating against

Germany from England, and

the new Fifteenth Air Force,

assembling in southern Italy,

Allied leaders established the

United States Strategic Air

Forces in Europe (USSTAF).

As part of the reorganization,

Arnold sent Spaatz to England to command USSTAF.

He also gave Doolittle the

Eighth Air Force and moved

Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker from

England to head the MAAF.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe

remained active. German airmen attacked Allied bomber formations, repeatedly raided La Maddalena harbor in Sardinia, and struck shipping off

Naples and across the Mediterranean at Benghazi. During the night of December 2/3, approximately thirty German aircraft pounded Bari and blew

up two ammunition ships in the harbor. The resulting explosions destroyed

an additional seventeen vessels and closed the port for three weeks.

To reduce the Luftwaffe’s threat, airmen of the MAAF hunted the enemy in the air and on the ground. They also teamed with Allied ground

forces to bomb and strafe German troops approaching the front and to fly

interdiction missions against roads and bridges. Meanwhile, a new strategic air force loomed on the horizon.

The Fifteenth Air Force:A Strategic Punch from the Mediterranean

Planning a series of coordinated, precision bombing attacks against

the Luftwaffe, the AAF leadership activated the Fifteenth Air Force in Tunis on November 1, 1943. A month later, its headquarters moved to Bari,

Italy, where it remained for the duration of the war.

Teamed with the Eighth Air Force and the RAF’s Bomber Command in

the combined bomber offensive, the Fifteenth Air Force began flying

strategic missions the day after its activation. The Combined Chiefs of

Staff (CCS) directed the Fifteenth Air Force to give strategic bombardment

16

Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle, left, and 

Maj. Gen. Nathan F. Twining

PHOTO # 16
of Germany top priority, so it faced the challenge of flying missions

throughout central and southern Europe. Its targets ranged from submarine pens in France to marshaling yards in Bulgaria. During its first three

months, the Fifteenth Air Force not only fulfilled its strategic role but also

directly supported the Italian campaign.

Also during this period, Allied airmen planned for Operation Argument, a series of coordinated attacks against German fighter assembly

plants and the ball-bearing industry. In mid-February 1944, clearing

weather allowed Operation Argument, later called Big Week, to begin.

The RAF and the Eighth Air Force flew the brunt of the missions from

England, and the Fifteenth Air Force, led by Maj. Gen. Nathan F. Twining,

bombed industrial sites in Austria and southern Germany. Operation Argument ended when the weather turned bad on February 25 and Allied

airmen assessed the situation. They concluded that they had seriously disorganized the enemy’s aircraft industry by damaging or destroying almost

70 percent of its factory buildings. Later evidence showed that, although

the Germans dispersed their aircraft plants and eventually increased production, for a critical period they were deprived of almost five hundred

desperately needed fighters.

Until the war’s end, Twining’s airmen flew a variety of missions, not

only bombing strategic targets but also supporting operations in the

17

Choking smoke

rises from

German oil

refineries struck

by U.S. Fifteenth

Air Force heavy

bombers in raids

conducted in

May 1944.

PHOTO # 17
Mediterranean, including the Anzio landing, the invasion of southern

France, and assaults on the Gustav and Gothic Lines in Italy. Of all Fifteenth Air Force targets, however, Ploesti stood alone. Following up on

earlier raids, the Fifteenth Air Force’s heavy bombers attacked Ploesti’s refineries nineteen times in 1944, always braving heavy flak and German

and Romanian fighters. These missions cost the United States hundreds of

heavy bombers and thousands of crewmen. But by the time Stalin’s Red

Army overran the complex in August 1944, the airmen had cut enemy fuel

production there by 80 percent, seriously damaging the German war 

machine.

By the end of the war, the Fifteenth Air Force had helped to destroy

almost half of Hitler’s fuel production capacity, seriously damage his

fighter production, and cripple his transportation system. Twining’s airmen did it all, from high-altitude precision bombing to strafing enemy

movement on the ground.

The Gustav Line

Rome

As the Fifteenth Air Force pounded strategic targets in central and

southern Europe, Allied leaders in Italy looked north to Rome and saw a

major psychological symbol: liberating that city would mark the fall of the

first Axis capital. Rome’s capture also promised strategic advantages by

providing airfields closer to Germany and forcing the enemy back to defensive positions in the northern Apennines. Predictably, the experienced

18

The Allies carried

out 23 large-scale

attacks on Ploesti,

Romania, in the

spring and

summer of 1944.

Some of the 13,000

tons of bombs

dropped there

resulted in this

damage to a

German oil

refinery.

PHOTO # 18
and resourceful German commander in

Italy, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, also

realized Rome’s significance. As the U.S.

Fifth Army landed at Salerno, he ordered

construction of a defensive line across the

width of the country south of Rome. Initially, Kesselring intended merely to delay

the Allied advance; later, hoping to halt it

completely, he directed expansion of the

fortifications, which he designated the

Gustav Line. Taking maximum advantage

of the mountainous terrain, his engineers

sank thick concrete bunkers into the steep

slopes, blasted artillery pits from the rocky

faces, and carefully placed hundreds of

deadly machine-gun nests. They strung

miles of barbed wire and sowed thousands

of mines. To reach Rome, the Allies had to

either breach this line or go around it.

Allied armies began their drive on

Rome shortly after the Salerno landings. The British Eighth Army moved

up the eastern side of the Italian peninsula; the U.S. Fifth Army moved up

the west. In October 1943, the Fifth Army crossed the raging Volturno

River and approached Cassino. The airmen teamed with ground forces at

the river by creating roadblocks and snarling enemy traffic along the coast

and further inland. Roaming fighters then destroyed hundreds of German

vehicles in the stalled columns.

During this period, however, the greatest concern of Allied airmen

was not the enemy but the weather that all too frequently grounded Allied

aircraft for days at a time. But the weather failed to stop Clark’s Fifth

Army. After consolidating its bridgeheads across the Volturno, the Fifth

Army confronted Kesselring’s Gustav Line.

Eisenhower and other Allied leaders dreaded a bloody frontal attack

on the Gustav Line and they searched for alternatives. Following British

success with an amphibious assault at Termoli on the Adriatic Sea, a similar move on Italy’s west coast seemed feasible. A surprise landing behind

the German defenders might draw them away from their deadly line and

allow the Allies to punch through and race for Rome.

After examining possible landing sites, Allied commanders chose

Anzio. The former seaside resort was the only location both close to

Rome and within range of friendly aircover. On November 8, the first anniversary of Allied landings in North Africa, Gen. Sir Harold R.L.G.

Alexander of Britain, commanding the 15th Army Group, gave Clark and

his Fifth Army staff six weeks to plan and execute a landing. Lack of

troops and shipping temporarily shelved the plan, but a stagnating front

19

Field Marshal 

Albert Kesselring

PHOTO # 19
revived the idea in January 1944. Under strong British pressure, Clark’s

staff reviewed and expanded the original concept and scraped together an

invasion force.

The Anzio operation would represent a major effort behind enemy

lines. An Anglo-American force of infantry, armored, airborne, commando, and ranger units would make up the initial assault. Overhead, approximately twenty-six hundred aircraft of the XII Tactical Air Command,

British Desert Air Force, Coastal Air Force, and Tactical Bomber Force

would patrol the skies.

In a prelude to the landings, the British and French struck the right

side of the Gustav Line on January 12, and eight days later the American

II Corps, at the center of the Fifth Army front, attempted a forced crossing

of the Rapido River. In the face of intense German fire, both attacks

quickly bogged down with heavy casualties. On January 21, the Anzio

landing force sailed from Naples.

Anzio

When the Allies approached Anzio in the early hours of January 22,

1944, they enjoyed complete surprise. German regional reserves had departed earlier to defend the threatened Gustav Line and left behind only a

single company to face the unexpected onslaught. As the Allies came

ashore, friendly fighters overhead spoiled the Luftwaffe’s midmorning appearance over the beaches: they shot down seven aircraft, damaged several

20

Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, commanding

general of the U.S. Fifth Army.

PHOTO # 20
others, and scattered the rest. Throughout the day, medium bombers cut

road junctions beyond the beachhead and heavy bombers slowed a delayed German response by pounding transportation targets near Florence,

Rome, and in the Liri Valley.

Allied forces met only scattered German resistance and pushed seven

miles inland over the next few days. British and American troops captured

the town of Aprilia, and the Americans closed to within three miles of

Cisterna. Then, Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas, commander of the invasion

force, cautiously halted the entire offensive, dug in, and awaited reinforcements. To his south, the Fifth Army had failed to crack the Gustav Line after ten days of bloody fighting.

Kesselring anticipated a landing behind the Gustav Line, but during

the first few days of the attack on Anzio he lacked the reserves to respond.

This situation changed quickly. While the Allies regrouped, Kesselring assembled reinforcements. Troops came from Rome to block exits in the Alban Hills. At Armed Forces High Command in Berlin, Hitler agreed to

send in units from Yugoslavia, France, and Germany. A swelling enemy

tide soon flowed toward Anzio. Allied airmen desperately battled the

buildup, flying hundreds of sorties in appalling weather, but the Germans

were unstoppable.

On February 4, Kesselring launched a massive assault. He hit the

British hard near Campoleone, but he could not break the stubborn defenders. The German commander continued attacking throughout February, at one point ripping a gaping hole in the American lines and driving

within a few miles of the beach. But the Americans desperately fought

21

The abbey at the top of Monte Cassino was thought to be a German

observation post and the Allies destroyed it in February 1944.

PHOTO # 21
back and plugged the gap, using fliers of the XII Air Support Command,

artillery, naval gunfire, and armored units.

While the beleaguered Anzio defenders held on, the Allies continued to

hurl themselves against the Gustav Line. Concentrated German defenses,

rugged terrain, and miserable weather allowed little progress. A key German position in the line, the town of Cassino and the nearby hill, Monte

Cassino, commanded the surrounding ground. A world-famous abbey at

the top of Monte Cassino soon drew Allied attention as a possible enemy

observation post. Following considerable debate, the Allied command ordered the abbey destroyed. On February 15, Allied bombers reduced the

abbey to ruins. The Germans took maximum defensive advantage of the

rubble, repeatedly holding off carefully planned and courageously executed attacks from the valley below. Slowly the battle ebbed at Cassino and

elsewhere along the Gustav Line, as both sides neared exhaustion. By

mid-March, an uneasy, three-month lull settled in after weeks of inconclusive fighting.

Operation Strangle

Allied airmen soon devised their own bold plan to help crack the Gustav Line: use air power to severely restrict enemy resupply. The air offensive, appropriately named Operation Strangle, called for thousands of

strategic and tactical aircraft to attack every rail route the Germans used,

thereby forcing them to rely on an inadequate network of roads. Planners

hoped that the weakened defenders, starved of supplies and pressured by a

renewed Allied ground offensive, would be unable to hold the Gustav

Line, the key to central Italy.

On March 19, the Mediterranean Allied Tactical Air Force struck targets from the Gustav Line to the Swiss frontier. Medium bombers

wrecked marshaling yards and repair facilities. Fighters and fighterbombers of the XII Air Support Command and the Desert Air Force cut

rail lines radiating from Rome to cities in central Italy. As trains stacked

up north and south of Rome, heavy bombers borrowed from the air war

over Germany hit distant rail centers in northern Italian cities and scrambled enemy troops and supplies from beyond the Alps.

Operation Strangle differed from earlier endeavors in that Allied airmen simultaneously targeted whole systems of bridges, yards, tunnels,

and even open stretches of track. Beginning in March, for example, medium bombers flew 176 missions against bridges between Rome and Florence, destroying or damaging at least nineteen bridges. They also

dropped three spans on a principal route between Genoa and southern

France. By March 24, medium bombers had cut every major line that supplied the German front. Meanwhile, the fighter-bombers attacked bridges,

stretches of track, supply centers, tunnels, and viaducts. Fighter-bombers,

in particular, proved surprisingly successful as bridge busters: in a single

22
day, P–47 Thunderbolts from the 57th Fighter Group destroyed six

bridges.

Contemporaneously, B–17s and B–24s of the Fifteenth Air Force

pounded northern Italian transportation centers. A series of missions

flown in the final days of March rained destruction on marshaling yards

and adjacent industrial areas at Verona, Turin, Milan, and Bologna.

As Operation Strangle progressed, the Germans tried to repair rail

lines, construct bypasses, ship around breaks, and shuttle trains over usable

segments of track. Nothing worked. The enemy was unable to overcome

23

The Allied air offensive Operation Strangle was planned to severely disrupt

enemy resupply efforts in Italy.Among the targets were a critical railroad

junction at Orvieto, top, and rail lines at Bologna, bottom.

PHOTO # 22

PHOTO # 23
the rail damage inflicted by MAAF’s aircraft and so began to rely on motor transport. Italian roads, soon clogged with trucks, drew swarms of

American fighters and fighter-bombers that ripped into the exposed German columns and left hundreds of blazing wrecks.

Kesselring found it difficult to meet his front’s demands for men and

matériel. German units moving down from the north reached the battle

area only after sustaining heavy casualties and losing much of their equipment. Stocks of motor fuel, heavy ammunition, and equipment dropped

alarmingly. But a static battlefield permitted the Germans to maintain

their forces in central Italy by strict rationing, foraging for food, and moving supplies and reinforcements after dark.

As the air campaign neared the two-month mark in early May, rested

and refitted Allied ground forces once again prepared to assault the Gustav

Line. On May 11, one hour before midnight, soldiers of the U.S. Fifth and

British Eighth Armies heard the barrage of a thousand Allied guns cross

the narrow front from Cassino westward to the Tyrrhenian Sea. Early the

next morning, the troops attacked. Against stubborn German resistance,

Polish forces on the right moved into the ruins of the abbey at Monte

Cassino, British and Canadian troopers in the center crossed the Rapido

River, and the Americans on the left pressed forward into the Liri Valley.

The MAAF directly supported the assault while maintaining pressure

against German lines of communication in the rear. Heavy bombers first

struck Kesselring’s headquarters and those of the German Tenth Army,

then targeted enemy-controlled marshaling yards and ports in central

Italy. Medium bombers and fighter-bombers concentrated on command

posts, strongpoints, troop concentrations, bridges, and towns, while newly

organized jeep-borne ground spotters directed air strikes on enemy positions in the Liri Valley. These coordinated MAAF attacks wreaked havoc

on the German defenders.

As the ground forces moved forward, so did the aviation engineers, who

repaired captured airfields and built new ones for Allied aircraft, some in

less than five days. They moved so fast that a forward patrol of the Fifth

Army once captured an engineer survey team and held it prisoner, refusing

to believe that any outfit could get ahead of the infantry. With this type of

enthusiastic air support, equally eager ground forces smashed through the

Gustav Line and forced Kesselring into headlong retreat. This stunning success justified the faith that Allied planners placed in the men and planes of

Operation Strangle; in part, the breakthrough came because of them.

Meanwhile, on May 23, the American VI Corps, with the help of more

than seven hundred air sorties, finally broke free from its five months of

misery at Anzio. By June 1, the full impact of the air interdiction campaign

hit the Germans. Their reserves of fuel and ammunition fell far below the

danger point, and inadequate transport made distribution from depots impossible. These factors, together with air attacks on reserve units, broke the

24
enemy’s back. On the evening of June 4, 1944, American patrols entered

Rome.

Under Eisenhower’s command, the Normandy invasion two days later

quickly overshadowed Rome’s liberation and severely affected the future

of the Italian campaign, as Allied leaders shifted men and matériel from

the Mediterranean to the battle in France. But, even as units withdrew,

Alexander kept pushing the Germans north.

The Allies progressed steadily despite increasing resistance, and by

June 21 they stood 110 miles north of Rome. Allied air power speeded the

advance by bombing bridges, road transport, and troop concentrations,

and by flying close air support missions. Still rolling north, the Fifth

Army’s 442d Regimental Combat Team, a Japanese-American unit destined to become one of the most heavily decorated of the war, took the

port of Leghorn on July 19 and reached the banks of the Arno River a few

days later.

Meanwhile, the port of Ancona fell to the British Eighth Army’s Polish

Corps, and British forces entered the city of Florence in early August. Allied forces, exhausted from months of continuous combat, halted to rest,

refit, and prepare for future fighting. Unfortunately, this pause gave the

25

Leghorn harbor facilities, on the west coast of Italy, had been used by the

Germans to supply their troops on the Italian front. During Operation

Strangle, the harbor sustained extensive damage.

PHOTO # 24
Germans time to complete their newest defensive obstacle in Italy, the

Gothic Line.

Invasion of Southern France

As early as August 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff had explored

the possibility of a diversionary attack in southern France to be launched

in coordination with Operation Overlord, the main cross-channel assault

at Normandy. Mounting a new invasion, however, would require troops

from Italy, and the intensified fighting there, especially at Anzio and

along the Gustav Line, consumed more troops, shipping, and supplies

than the Chiefs had anticipated, forcing them to postpone a decision on

any peripheral invasions until after the fall of Rome.

Following the liberation of Rome, the plan to invade southern France

won approval. Eisenhower needed ports to support his forces pouring

into Normandy, and Marseilles, on the French Riviera, fit the bill. An invasion there promised a direct route to vital German industry in the Ruhr

region. Thus, on July 2, the CCS set a target invasion date of August 15.

26

The British Eighth Army’s Polish Corps took the port of Ancona, Italy.

PHOTO # 25
As invasion planning proceeded, MAAF’s fighters and medium

bombers in Italy continued supporting the Fifth and Eighth Armies’ drives

toward the Po River, appearing only infrequently over southern France.

Heavy bombers, however, flew several important preinvasion missions.

On July 5, 228 B–17s and 319 B–24s hit marshaling yards at Montpellier

and Bezier and the naval installations at Toulon. They quickly staged several more raids against bridges and airfields. In early August, more than

one thousand heavy bombers attacked rail lines and oil storage installations in the invasion area.

By August 5, the remainder of the MAAF joined the assault. Fighterbombers hit bridges, locomotives, rolling stock, and railroad tracks in and

around Marseilles. B–25 medium bombers struck important bridges at

Avignon. Five days later, a preparatory bombing campaign began in

earnest. Allied aircraft attacked coastal defense guns and radar stations in

the assault area, then spread out to strafe Luftwaffe airdromes as distant as

northern Italy. Day by day, as the air attacks intensified, troops, shipping,

and troop carrier aircraft assembled. At the end of the remarkably short

span of six weeks, the landing force stood ready.

In the early morning hours of August 15, 396 planes of the Provisional Troop Carrier Air Division dropped more than five thousand American

and British paratroopers near Le Muy, France. A few hours later, the

MAAF reinforced this initial wave with glider-borne units. By dawn, the

paratroopers were fighting for Le Muy, while heavy and medium bombers

and fighter-bombers swept over the invasion area and destroyed underwater obstacles, beach defenses, and coastal guns. The payoff came as the

American Seventh Army and the French II Corps hit the beaches against

light and disorganized enemy resistance.

27

The railroad bridge at Piacenza, Italy, was the only such bridge that crossed

the Po River in this area. The bridge was a MAAF target in Operation

Strangle.

PHOTO # 26
Aided and protected by MAAF’s aircraft, the assault troops quickly

consolidated their positions and moved inland. By the end of D-Day, the

U.S. 45th Division reached Le Muy and linked up with airborne troopers

dropped the previous night. French and American units on the invasion’s

left flank, aided by medium bombers, turned west and captured Toulon

and Marseilles at month’s end.

Concurrently, the main American force, preceded by medium and

fighter-bomber attacks, moved up the Rhône Valley as German traffic

streamed north to escape the Allied juggernaut. Unprotected by the Luftwaffe, the retreating Germans were easy targets. Allied aircraft bombed

and strafed the congested columns at will during daylight, shredding the

fleeing troops and transport. Later, the American Seventh Army reported

more than two thousand destroyed vehicles choking one stretch of territory. Periodically, the Germans turned and fought, but Allied ground and air

forces quickly overwhelmed them.

Finally, on September 6, near the Belfort Gap, the Germans stood

their ground long enough to permit an orderly withdrawal. Shortly thereafter, the Seventh Army and the French II Corps met elements of Patton’s

Third Army, fresh from its Normandy breakout and dash across France.

Together, the two armies turned toward the Rhine and the attack on the

German homeland.

***

The invasion of southern France was the last of a series of amphibious

operations in the Mediterranean that began in North Africa and continued

with assaults on Pantelleria, Sicily, southern Italy, and Anzio. None was

more successful than that in the south of France. The battle-won lessons

of the earlier invasions finally bore fruit on the beaches of the French Riviera and in the campaign that followed.

Conventional Allied amphibious assaults, involving thousands of men

fighting along a clearly defined battlefront, were vital to victory. But European rebellion against Axis occupation, although unconventional and

peripheral, was also important in defeating Hitler. Here, too, the AAF

made a major contribution.

Support for Resistance Movements

Following the German victories in Europe, patriotic elements arose in

virtually every occupied country. The Allies encouraged these groups,

popularly known as the “underground” or as “partisans,” to organize,

gather intelligence, and resist. As early as 1940, the British government

established the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to aid them. Later, in

1942, the Americans followed with their own Office of Strategic Services

(OSS). The activities of both of these organizations came to be called

“special operations.”

28
In the Mediterranean theater, special operations started slowly. Before

September 1943, the Allies conducted them on a limited scale, flying only

a few missions into France. But Allied agents, acting with the French resistance, soon pressed for more. Faced with expanding special operations,

the RAF formed the 334th Wing in November 1943 to command almost

all special-duty aircraft in the theater.

The Balkan Partisans

When Eaker arrived in the Mediterranean at the end of 1943, he expressed an interest in special operations and arranged for an American unit,

the 122d Liaison Squadron, to participate. Additionally, in February 1944,

two squadrons of the 62d Troop Carrier Group arrived in Brindisi, Italy, to

support the Balkan partisans. Flying C–47s, they airdropped guns, ammunition, dynamite, food, clothing, and medical supplies to the partisans waiting

below. When landings became possible, gasoline, jeeps, and even mules

were quickly unloaded. In a typical mission, the Americans dropped thousands of pounds of ammunition and supplies, several SOE/OSS agents

(called “Joes” and “Janes”), and hundreds of thousands of leaflets.

The C–47s solved a critical supply situation that the RAF 334th Wing,

always short of aircraft, could not solve. Flying sorties in central and

southern Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, and northern Italy, often

in dangerous winter weather, the Americans dropped nearly 400,000

pounds of supplies and leaflets and numerous personnel in February and

March 1944. A few weeks later, the original squadrons wearily welcomed

their relief when four new C–47 units of the 60th Troop Carrier Group took

over. The cargo pilots faced harrowing problems. They flew mainly at night

and frequently had difficulty spotting the primitive landing strips in narrow

valleys surrounded by peaks and ridges. Many of these fields could be approached from only one direction and failure on the first attempt could

mean a wrecked aircraft and death. Despite the dangers, the number of

night landings and escorted daylight sorties steadily increased. Between

April and October 1944, the 60th Troop Carrier Group made more than

seven hundred landings, almost all in Yugoslavia. Much of that support

went to Marshal Tito (Josip Broz), a Yugoslav partisan leader locked in a

savage struggle with the German invader. One typically dangerous mission

involved delivering twenty-four mules and twelve 75-mm guns to Tito’s

partisans in Montenegro. Flying on instruments through terrible weather,

the pilots slipped between two jagged peaks to a safe landing.

In October 1944, the AAF assigned heavy bombers to augment the

transports, and the 885th Bombardment Squadron began flying to distant

points in northern Italy and Yugoslavia. Until the end of the war, American units continued supplying partisan bands wherever they fought, from

remote mountains and valleys to the teeming cities of Belgrade, Zagreb,

and Sarajevo.

29
The Italian Resistance

The Italian resistance movement differed from its Yugoslav counterpart. In Italy, partisans took a supporting role while Allied and Axis forces

fought on major battlegrounds along a well-defined front. The anti-Fascist

guerrillas harassed German lines of communication, protected Allied

agents, gathered information, and helped downed airmen evade capture.

After the invasion of southern France, the United States increased its

support for the Italian partisans. Flying first from North Africa and later

from Italy, the 885th Bombardment Squadron dropped tons of supplies to

resistance forces in the Po Valley. Supply drops increased dramatically

when the 62d and 64th Troop Carrier Groups joined the effort. Partisan attacks on the enemy also increased. Field Marshal Kesselring reluctantly diverted nearly 40,000 troops from his crumbling front to suppress the guerrillas. Although the Germans killed or captured hundreds of partisans, they

were unable to crush the resistance movement. American-supplied partisans continued fighting Germans in northern Italy until the war ended.

Evacuation from Enemy Territory

As the tempo of Balkan operations intensified, the MAAF faced the

problem of evacuating increasing numbers of downed Allied fliers. Many

aircraft did not return after missions against heavily defended targets. Fortunately, some aircrews parachuting from damaged aircraft or surviving

crash landings came under the protection of the underground, which fed

them, cared for their wounds, hid them from the Germans, and frequently

helped them reach the Adriatic coast. When possible, partisans led

downed airmen to secret airstrips where special operations aircraft flew

them to safety.

In late July 1944, Eaker directed the Fifteenth Air Force to form Air

Crew Rescue Unit No. 1, an outfit specifically devoted to rescue and

evacuation. During the night of August 2/3, in a mission typical of many

flown until war’s end, the unit dropped a field party fifty-five miles south

of Belgrade, where roughly one hundred airmen had assembled. The rescuers immediately set to work on a landing strip. Six days later, C–47s

evacuated nearly three hundred men there.

Later in August, when Romania abruptly left the Axis and joined the

Allies, the Fifteenth Air Force learned of more than one thousand American airmen held in prison camps near Bucharest. The POWs faced imminent deportation to the Third Reich. Hurriedly converting 56 B–17s into

transports, the Italy-based Fifteenth Air Force mounted Operation Reunion. As the newly converted transports touched down near the camps,

the former prisoners surged forward, happily crowded into the B–17s, and

were flown to safety.

30
***

The special operations units, using equipment and techniques adapted

to their peculiar operational problems, took on a certain aura that distinguished them from normal combat units. Bombers and fighters made

headlines, but the work of special operations personnel remained secret

and apart. The looks of relief on their passengers’ faces kept morale high

and added immeasurably to the pride they felt in flying these dangerous

but unsung missions.

Breaching the Gothic Line

In the autumn of 1944, while Eisenhower’s forces drew close to the

German border, Allied soldiers in Italy began their assault on the Gothic

Line. On August 26, with the support of Allied aircraft, the British Eighth

Army launched an assault against Kesselring’s left flank. P–40 Kittyhawks, P–51 Mustangs, and other fighter aircraft attacked German tanks,

troops, and guns. Medium bombers pounded fortifications between Pesaro and Rimini and hit marshaling yards at Cesena, Budrio, and Rimini.

Supporting the U.S. Fifth Army’s upcoming attack, Allied medium and

heavy bombers struck north of the Gothic Line near the Po River. By September 5, all crossings from Turin to the Adriatic were blocked. To further

isolate the Germans, Allied bombers attacked industrial areas in northwest Italy and destroyed every rail bridge over the Ticino River between

31

Rescuing downed airmen who parachuted from damaged aircraft

or survived crash landings became one of the responsibilities of the

Fifteenth Air Force’s Air Crew Rescue Unit No. 1.

PHOTO # 27
Lake Maggiore and the Po. Meanwhile, fighter-bombers cut roads and rail

lines leading to the Gothic Line.

When the Fifth Army’s assault began on September 9, medium

bombers shifted their attacks to rail lines leading directly into Bologna.

Along with fighter-bombers, they began blasting a path through the enemy

line. On September 21, while the MAAF knocked out hastily repaired

bridges over the Po River and struck marshaling yards, crossroads, military camps, trucks, rolling stock, and track, the Eighth Army captured the

city of Rimini on the Adriatic Sea. Meanwhile, Allied airmen further isolated the Gothic Line by blocking transit through the Brenner Pass on the

border between Germany and Italy and cutting enemy lines of communication along the Brenta, Piave, and Tagliamento Rivers in northeastern

Italy. This air and ground onslaught devastated Kesselring’s defenders,

and the Gothic Line finally cracked.

The day after Christmas, the German Fourteenth Army turned and

struck the Americans outside Bologna, but within two days they pulled

back to new defensive positions. In mid-January 1945, the MAAF renewed attacks on the enemy’s transportation system in northeastern Italy

and further disrupted their withdrawal. Despite these efforts, however,

fighting dragged on along a static front until April, when the final offensive began against remaining German forces in Italy.

The Final Offensive:Advance to the Po River

Beginning on the afternoon of April 9, 1945, and continuing over a

two-day period, 1,673 heavy bombers saturated enemy target areas opposite British 5 Corps and Polish 2 Corps, and 624 medium bombers attacked German defenses and troop concentrations. As the bombers were

leaving, fighter-bombers of the Desert Air Force and the XXII Tactical Air

Command appeared overhead, strafing and bombing enemy command

32

From ancient times,

inhabitants of the

Italian peninsula had

built their cities 

on the peaks of the

Apennines for easy

defense. The Germans

stretched their 

Gothic Line across

the same peaks.

PHOTO # 28
posts, gun positions, and strongpoints. Following the saturation attacks,

New Zealand and Polish troops surged forward and, by the evening of

April 11, reached the Santerno River.

Delayed by torrential downpours, the Fifth Army stepped off on April

14, heavily supported by the XXII Tactical Air Command. The Americans

made rapid progress in their attack and soon captured Bologna. With the

British Eighth Army on their right, they forced the Germans to withdraw

to the Po River.

Driven from their carefully prepared positions, the Germans fled

northward, but the bombing campaign’s cumulative effects dogged them.

When they reached the Po, the Germans lacked both the ability to stop

the pursuing Allied forces and the means to make a rapid and orderly retreat. They were finished. Negotiations began on April 29, and on May 2

the Germans signed terms of unconditional surrender. The war in Italy

was over.

Conclusion

American airmen of the Ninth, Twelfth, and Fifteenth Air Forces

fought in ten major campaigns in the Mediterranean theater of operations.

In North Africa, American and British airmen forged a usable air-ground

doctrine that consolidated air power under the control of air, rather than

ground, commanders. Moreover, everyone gained vital experience in

working as an air-ground team.

With growing confidence, Allied airmen played a significant role in

the Sicily operation, as they pounded Pantelleria into surrender, gained air

superiority over Sicily, and delivered close air support throughout the

campaign. When the Allies landed on the shores of Italy, and later on the

beaches at Normandy, they carried with them the wealth of experience so

hard won in Africa and Sicily. In pushing the Germans from the tip of

Italy’s boot north to the Alps, the Allies not only tied up enemy divisions

that could have been used against the Soviets or the Allied invasion of

France, but also secured Mediterranean lines of communication that

served as vital links to the Middle East, India, and beyond.

In executing Operation Strangle, U.S. and Allied airmen reduced 

enemy supplies and shattered the ability of Hitler’s forces to resist Allied

ground attacks. Airmen also proved that they could sustain the partisans

in the Balkans, northern Italy, and France, and bring to safety large numbers of wounded personnel and downed fliers.

When the Germans surrendered in northern Italy, American airmen

could look back with pride. Alongside their allies and at great cost in men

and matériel, they had fought from the hot and windblown deserts of

North Africa to the freezing, snow-covered Italian Alps; supported four

major assault landings; and achieved air superiority in the Mediterranean.

33
Churchill had championed the Mediterranean theater as the soft underbelly of the Axis. American war correspondent Ernie Pyle disagreed with

Churchill and he got it right. Echoing the emotions of many who fought

there, he labeled that theater a “tough old gut.”

SUGGESTED READINGS

Blumenson, Martin. Salerno to Cassino. Washington, D.C.: Office of the

Chief of Military History, 1969.

Craven, Wesley Frank, and James Lea Cate, eds. The Army Air Forces in

World War II (7 vols.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1948–1958; new imprint, Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force

History, 1983.

Davis, Richard G. Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe. Washington,

D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1993.

Eisenhower. Dwight D. Crusade in Europe. New York: Doubleday, 1948.

Fisher, Ernest F., Jr. Cassino to the Alps. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army

Center of Military History, 1977. 

Hallion, Richard P. Strike from the Sky: The History of Battlefield Air Attack, 1911–1945. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution

Press, 1989.

Howe, George F. Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West.

Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1957.

Kesselring, Albert. A Soldier’s Record. New York: Morrow, 1954.

Mortensen, Daniel R. A Pattern for Joint Operations: World War II Close

Air Support, North Africa. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force

History and U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1987.

Murray, Williamson. Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe, 1933–1945.

Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1983.

Orange, Vincent. Coningham. Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force

History, 1992.

Parton, James. Air Force Spoken Here. Bethesda, Md.: Adler and Adler

Publishers, 1986.

Perret, Geoffrey. Winged Victory: The Army Air Forces in World War II.

New York: Random House, 1993.

Warnock, A. Timothy. Air Force Combat Medals, Streamers, and Campaigns. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1990.

Winterbotham, F. W. The Ultra Secret. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

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